This is my first year growing corn. After all the vasts of knowledge I have tryed to learn on the subject of corn I got my soil tests back. The cation exchange is an 11.1 I then learned you multiply that be 10 roughly and thats the hold and exchange compasity of your soils. Well this dosent help me because I was gonna pre-plant broadcast 225 units of Nitrogen. So now I need some advise on how to spoon feed the crop along. Pre-plant will be 115 units of N, Sidedress V3 to V-5 70 units N and finally another 60 before Tassel. I have low acres this year so I have Time to do more intensive managing then most. What do you think? Pros/cons of using urea? Ammonium Nitrate? Uan? and rates? Thanks for the help

Stacks443- I would figure on putting about 2/3 of your nitrogen needs on as preplant NH3 or UAN, whatever is available in your area. I use NH3 because its cheaper and available, I understand some areas can't get it. This nitrogen is going to protected against de-nitrification. Either with N-Serve on the NH3 or Instinct on the UAN. In my opinion, there are no subsitutes. From there I would put 8-10 gal/ ac of UAN with your herbicide pre. That'll give you another 30 lbs. of N, protect that with Agrotain Ultra. Once again, no subsitute. That'll protect you from the Urea part of the UAN from volatalizing. From there I would spread 100 lb/ ac of Urea treated with Agrotain Ultra at V4-V7. Don't go past V8. That would be my final Nitrogen application.

That is my nitrogen management for corn. I wouldn't spread nitrogen after V8 b/c you have to have rain to put that N to work. Spreading Urea at tasseling is quite risky, IMO. If it forgets to rain around tasseling/ grain fill even for 2 weeks, that Urea you put on is gone. Buh-BYE. Additionally, even if it rains and gets it in the soil (saves it from volatilization) but there isn't enough soil moisture to move that N to the roots, boom... no help from it either. Hope all that makes sense.

I love spoon feeding my corn, and so many people claim they don't have time to manage their corn the way I do. My first response is that I love beating their corn yield by 40 bushel/ ac. They hate hearing that. Then I point out that I only had 1 additional pass than them, in regards to nutrient application. Your question about the Urea burning the corn is a good one. But no, it doesn't burn it enough to amount to anything. I know some people that had a wet spring a couple of years ago that were unable to get their preplant N put on, so they decided to just get the corn planted and they would side-dress it with NH3. Well it stayed wet and they were unable to sidedress it, so they spread 435 lbs/ ac of Urea at about V5, and it burned the crap out of it. 2 weeks later it was looking back to normal, it yielded as good or better than the corn in the area.

would you take into acount the cation Exchange....the extension was talking about after around 115 units at one application I would have alot of leaching and volitizing? DO you factor that in from your soil samples? Maybe Im making this more complicated then most but trying to do it the right way so I dont throw my money away into the ground water.

I am far from a soil scientist, but I never use CEC to judge how much N to put on at one time. I have heard of that multiply by ten rule, but have never believed in it. I only really use CEC as a gauge for the amount of K my soil has the ability to hold since that is the mineral that I am trying to maintain at an adequate level. Ammonium will eventually be used in its current form, or convert to nitrate. From there, it will either be used or lost. Its impossible to keep it there. Maybe the wrong way to think about it, but that's how I think of it. Being in an area that can get odd weather in the winter and early spring, I try to put my NH3 on no earlier than 6 weeks before planting. That doesn't always work if I have a dry early spring and wet planting time. But 9 times out of 10 it does.